BookHampton News & Book Reviews

May 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

One of my favorite novelists, Toni Morrison, returns with the breathtaking and brief Home (Knopf). Frank Money is a Korean War veteran, just returned to the ever-racist U.S., hospitalized for unspoken atrocities that have scarred him both physically and mentally.

Defeated, angry, and lost, he is shocked out of his stupor by his need to save his younger sister, who is gravely ill after being medically abused by the doctor she works for. Frank must get to her in time, and must take her back to the small Georgia town where they grew up together. Frank has always hated his hometown, but it is a journey he must take, to save his sister and himself.

Morrison’s novel is, as usual, beautifully written, and Frank’s journey, full of childhood memories and flashes of the war’s brutalities, is a journey of redemption. Home is the U.S. Home is Georgia. But ultimately, Home is family. Home is love. Home is memory.

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

John Irving has always grappled with issues of sexual identity, but in his powerful and potently political new novel, In One Person (Simon & Schuster), Irving wrestles with these themes and pins them to the floor. This is his most moving, passionate, and heartfelt novel since A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Irving introduces us to Billy, a self-considered bisexual, as well as the family, friends, and lovers who orbit him. Billy’s story is all at once a story of unrequited love, sexual fluidity, lifelong bonds, and absent caretakers; a story of how you discover who you are by who you love, and how to take comfort from and be comfortable with that choice.

Billy’s journey is emotionally harrowing, but also filled with contagious humor. Irving again does what he does best: his characters are “characters,” but always ring true and touch your heart.

In One Person is a celebration of Billy’s triumph — from curious and confused adolescent, turning to literature for clues to his own mysteries (the gorgeous and groundbreaking Giovanni’s Room among many), to grown man living through the AIDS scourge — knowing himself, being himself, and realizing that he need not apologize for any of it. Irving’s portrait of the AIDS Decade is the most compelling and personal depiction of the disease’s ruthlessness, its diabolical insouciance, and the horrible pinball effect of its path.

In One Person is quintessential Irving: bold and brave, and in the same breath, beautifully pugilistic. Irving dares you to consider Billy’s life and not be both moved and outraged. It is surely one of the most important books of the year.